There is no escape.
When Sirius woke up, he couldn’t remember, for a moment, where he was, or how he had gotten there. An unfamiliar bed with...
It came back to him (her) then, deciding in the midst of a dark, dark night, a moment of self-destructive weakness and self-loathing, that the thing to do, the obvious solution to all of his (her) problems, or at least a desperate escape route into a different life, was to turn himself into a girl. Which he — she — had proceeded to do, waking Zee in the middle of the night, walking in on Bella and de Mort, and the ever-loving Dark Itself transforming him, rewriting her, and then pain, overwhelming, impossible pain, and after...
After was kind of fuzzy, pain fading slowly enough she hadn’t gotten the brilliant moment of elation that followed being released from the Cruciatus, and also slowly enough that between that and her exhaustion she hadn’t really been able to focus... Honestly, it had kind of felt like being drunk. (Really drunk.) She knew they’d been talking, at least a little, but...
Had Bella named her Asteria? Not the worst name, she guessed. Though exactly why Bella should get to name her, Sirius wasn’t really sure. He — she — was still kind of angry at her for that Cruciatus last Yule. Though...that was starting to seem a bit silly, now. Bella clearly wasn’t harbouring any sort of grudge for her insults or for opposing her entire political agenda, and if she managed not to think about the raids and the killings and the whole bloody war, it was hard not to fall back into thinking of her as Sirius’s favourite cousin, the witch who’d looked out for him all his life.
It didn’t hurt that she and de Mort apparently wanted Sirius — Asteria, whatever — to fight on Dumbledore’s side of the war — how weird was that? Though that was hardly the most surprising thing de Mort had said and/or thought at her over the course of the night. She was almost positive he’d said something like, you did good, kid, as she was falling asleep, which was... She had never heard him say something nice and not sarcastic to anyone, let alone something...supportive.
She didn’t exactly trust it, he was almost definitely trying to manipulate her for some reason, but still. It made it easier not to freak out when she realised she’d woken up in Bella’s bed, tangled up in a pile of limbs and sheets with both of them.
Well, de Mort was mostly curled up into a vaguely snakeish ball by himself, she guessed, craning her head to see over Bella’s shoulder. Reminded her of a real snake coiled up under a heat lamp. She wondered if he was going to use the ritual Jamie had found in his father’s library to turn himself into a snake for real. She couldn’t think why else he would want her memories of that particular ritual. Yes, it was soul magic which was inherently open to sketchy modifications, but it was intended to integrate an animal’s instincts into a human soul, made it about a thousand times easier to get used to an animagus form, not exactly useful for a lot of other purposes — or at least, she didn’t think it was?
Whatever, it didn’t matter. She’d promised she’d give them to him. It was possible he’d made copies of them already, while she was passed out, but...
She began extricating herself from Bella, stumbling out of the bed — something about her centre of balance was off. She needed to use the loo and find a bottle or something for those memories, and maybe take a shower — her skin felt weird and her head was all heavy . Everything seemed much clearer than it had last night — she hoped it was only last night, that she hadn’t been passed out for days. (Where the fuck was her— Oh, there, sitting on Bella’s bedside table beside hers, like it belonged there.) She gave her wand a quick flick, checking the date and time. Yeah, okay, last night, it was still Saturday...though, she was sure someone had noticed her missing by now, because it was also after two in the afternoon.
Clearer than things had seemed in weeks, really.
She padded naked through the darkened bedroom — windows hidden behind heavy curtains, and probably charmed dark too, because there wasn’t even a painfully bright outline around them — poking her head into what was probably a private library or salon or something and an equally dark corridor before locating the loo. She should probably find clothes at some point, too, and food, gods and Powers, she was fucking starving — when was the last time she’d eaten? Thursday? It might’ve been Thursday. She hadn’t really been making a point of regular meals for a while, now (oops) — which was really fucking obvious, she realised, casting a couple of light globes toward the ceiling of the bathroom.
It had been a while since she’d looked in a mirror — really looked, actually paying attention to her appearance — and there was a massive one on the back wall of the room, floor to ceiling. (Also, there was a shower stall and a proper tub — fuck yes!) Made it kind of impossible not to see how skinny she’d gotten since she’d gone back to school — ribs visible, hip and collar bones and all the odd knobbly bits of practically all of her joints sticking out, her face gaunt and sharp, eyes and cheeks deeply hollowed. The effect was shocking enough it took her several seconds to notice that all of the scars she’d managed to pick up over the first sixteen years of her life had vanished, even the ones that had transferred over from Padfoot playing with Moony on the full moon. She assumed she’d looked just as starved before the ritual. Maybe more so, since she was a couple inches shorter now. (Not a lot, just enough to notice when she’d reached for the door handle, her arm ended up at a different angle than she’d expected.) Seriously, how was Pete the only one who’d noticed she really wasn’t well? She needed better mates...
Aside from that, she looked pretty much like she’d expected — almost as flat-chested as she had been as a boy (nipples more prominent), hips a little wider (compared to her waist, at least). She was pretty sure her hair hadn’t changed at all, still looked fabulous (or would, once it was clean). Her eyes were the same too, silvery-grey, framed by heavy lashes Jamie and Pete had always said looked girly anyway. Looking closer, the bone structure of her face had changed a bit, too — some of the sharpness was that her jawline was less square, now, more heart-shaped overall.
Basically, she looked like Bella. Her face was a little more round, her eyes still much lighter, and Bella was much more fit, but aside from that... It was kind of uncanny, really. There had been a distinct resemblance between them before, too, but not this much — Bella’s mother was a Rosier. Really, by all rights, she thought they ought to look a little more different, even if they were the same sex now. Maybe the Dark had done it on purpose? She couldn’t imagine why. Maybe some ineffable, godly reason, or maybe just because it amused It. Not that it really mattered...aside from the fact that she could probably steal something of Bella’s to wear once she was clean, since the clothes she’d shown up in had mysteriously vanished at some point last night. (Shame — the jeans probably wouldn’t have fit anymore, but she’d liked that tee-shirt.)
She hadn’t really had any expectations as far as the mechanics of using the loo went — it was all pretty self-explanatory, she thought? Though she might have to ask Dorea about, erm...monthlies, and stuff... That she definitely hadn’t considered at all.
Just out of curiosity, she shifted to Padfoot’s form for a minute. Somehow he was also female, now. Struck her as odd, maybe because the dog she’d sacrificed in that soul-integration ritual had been male. Though, he hadn’t looked like Padfoot, so maybe it never had made much difference on the form she took. Maybe because she’d thought your animal didn’t change after you’d found it, and she kind of thought this counted as changing? Eh, she’d ask Remy about it, give him an excuse to go on one of those book hunts he liked so much.
She took a quick shower — scrubbing the feeling of foreign weirdness from her skin probably harder than necessary and washing her hair properly — while she waited for her bath to run. Just floating in the warm water for a while, trying to relax the lingering ache out of every muscle and bone in her body (like she’d flooded the lingering taint of dark magic from her soul with warm, light power), sounded like an excellent idea. She knew she probably felt much better than she reasonably should at the moment — this kind of all-encompassing physical change took weeks to accomplish with blood alchemy, and she was pretty sure the Dark had made it hurt worse just to punish her — but she still kind of felt like every cell in her body had been torn apart and put back together overnight, and they weren’t really accustomed to their new reality, yet.
Plus, there was one other thing she wanted to check out before she had to face the world looking for food and clothes (probably not in that order) and make copies of memories... Before she had to go back to the Potters’ and apologise to Dorea for blowing off the emergency appointment she’d made with her mind-healer friend and try to explain why it had seemed like a good idea to turn herself into a girl without admitting that it was mostly because the wizard she loved wouldn’t give her a second look as a boy, because Dorea was distinctly more sane than most of the Blacks, probably wouldn’t think that was as reasonable as Bella had. Charlus definitely wouldn’t. And...Asteria (kind of weird, still, thinking of herself by another name, but it was starting to grow on her)...did at least try not to say things that sounded entirely insane aloud.
She didn’t even want to think about what Arcturus would have to say about this (she had a sneaking suspicion even most of the Family would consider this impulsive and excessive)...or Reggie...or Narcissa, fuck, she was going to be positively insufferable...and James, the Marauders, they wouldn’t get it any more than Charlus. And she was going to have to think of some way to explain this without admitting she’d asked Bella and de Mort for help, because she hated de Mort and his war and everything he stood for, if she’d been in her right mind she definitely would’ve told him to go fuck himself and run off to Aquitania to get it done instead.
Ugh, she didn’t want to think about it.
Instead, she focused on the feel of her fingers skimming over her own thighs under the water, exploring the biggest difference between her old body and her new one more thoroughly. Much more thoroughly. She was, of course, fairly familiar with how girls worked, from an outside perspective, but playing with herself was obviously more...engaging. Yes, that was a good word. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been wondering what it felt like to come as a girl since she’d woken up with the sheet wrapped around between her legs, trapped so that any movement at all sort of rubbed...
She was just starting to really get into it when her cousin wandered obliviously into the bathroom, started the shower from the doorway with a flick of her wand.
“Bella! I was in the middle of something!”
Bella looked over, apparently surprised to see Asteria glaring at her from the tub. Had she not noticed that someone had cast light globes in here?! She smirked. “Carry on, I don’t mind.”
“...I lost my train of thought,” she admitted, sounding somewhat sulky even to herself. Even if she was able to ignore Bella’s very distracting presence, the moment — and her momentum — was gone. Served her right for not locking the door, maybe, but come on!
“Poor baby. Don’t you have your own bath to masturbate in? Though, that reminds me—” She flicked a spell at Asteria — which Asteria, still sitting in the bath, was entirely unable to dodge.
The curse settled like a cold stone in her lower abdomen, her awareness of it fading without any apparent effect even as she asked, “What the fuck was that?”
“False Hope Curse. Prevents pregnancy by stopping the whole process, including menstruation, hence the name. I assume you weren’t planning on having children in the next three years?”
Oh. “No. Definitely not.” She wasn’t planning on having children, ever, among other reasons because she was sure she’d be a shite parent. Also, that meant no monthlies, right? Yeah, she was totally fine with that.
“Good. Especially since I also assume becoming biologically female hasn’t improved your taste in lovers in any appreciable way.”
Right. She’d kind of forgotten that Bella had cursed Sirius so he wouldn’t be able to accidentally knock up a mudblood — or worse, an actual muggle! (Though she and Arcturus would have been delighted, Asteria was sure, if he had knocked up some poor pureblood girl so they could be forced into a proper marriage.) He’d been far more interested in the rest of that conversation, wherein he’d tried to change the subject away from his own sex life by making some very unsubtle remarks about Bella and de Mort, and ended up learning shite he’d never imagined about mixing sex and pain — most notably that he wasn’t nearly as much of a freak as he’d thought for thinking that kind of thing was fucking hot. Supposedly there were even people they weren’t related to who were into that sort of thing.
Supposedly. Sirius had never met one (other than de Mort), or at least not one who’d taken any of his hints that he’d be open to rougher play when they were fooling around, and he’d fucked...kind of a lot of people.
Aaand now she was getting distracted thinking about Bella and de Mort and knives, because Bella had turned around, her back still covered in fresh wounds — a symmetrical, geometric design, lots of arcs and triangle-ish shapes, some of them cut out, the flayed spots and red lines stark against her skin, brighter than her tattoos and the faded silvery runes carved all over her (made her think of the Dark Princess of the Fae Court of the Moon, for some reason) — and while that did kind of fix the issue of having lost her earlier train of thought, even she kind of thought it was weird to masturbate thinking about your sick, evil cousin and her sick, evil lover doing twisted shite like that (or even better, your sick, evil cousin and yourself— no, Asteria, bad thoughts!), especially when the cousin in question was in the shower about three metres away. Even if Bella wouldn’t have minded (and Asteria was pretty sure she wouldn’t), it still seemed like the sort of thing Jamie would think was weird, which was kind of the litmus test.
“I’m going to find something to eat,” she announced abruptly, floundering out of the tub and summoning a towel.
Bella ignored her distracted clumsiness, raising her hands to lather her hair. Asteria caught a glimpse of the Dark Mark on her forearm, which instantly made her about ten times less attractive. Right, yes, good, no sexy thoughts about evil cousins, no matter how distractingly twisted they might be.
“Can you actually cook? We don’t have an elf here.”
Could Bella actually cook? She meant, she’d forgotten that Bella disliked having elves around, she presumably had to feed herself somehow, and Asteria couldn’t imagine de Mort cooking...but she couldn’t really imagine Bella cooking either, so... “I’ll figure it out. How hard can it be?”
“If you want to wait maybe fifteen minutes we can go out for lunch.”
Asteria hesitated. On the one hand, she’d generally say no — she didn’t want to be seen in public (or anywhere else) with Bella — but on the other, no one was likely to recognise her at the moment, and that did sound better than trying to actually make food. “Sure?”
“Hmm, ‘kay. Feel free to raid my closet, but don’t transfigure my clothes.” No fucking shite, most of Bella’s clothes had at least one enchantment worked into them, and transfiguring enchanted items was always unpredictable (and usually wrecked them). “I’m sure you’ll find something that will fit. And try not to wake Thom, we didn’t go to sleep until nine.”
“...Sorry, if I woke you.” She tended to accidentally wake people up kind of a lot (when she wasn’t in the middle of a stay-in-bed-all-day funk), and they tended to be kind of annoyed about it. Even if it was well after noon.
Bella shrugged. “You did, but it’s fine.” She gave Asteria a crooked grin. “Haven’t you noticed? One of the best things about being a little mad is not needing to sleep much.”
...How had she not realised that? Gods and Powers, she could be a bloody idiot sometimes. Not that she liked being reminded that she was unnervingly similar to her insane older cousin in a number of disturbing ways, including having gotten the Black Madness worse than anyone else in their generation, but it did kind of explain a lot. (Including, now that she was thinking clearly again, pretty much all of the last month. Ergh...)
Something of her thoughts must have shown in her expression, because Bella laughed at her.
“So...that’s normal, then? Not sleeping?”
“For me? Yes. For you? Probably. During the ups, at least. I wouldn’t advise you deliberately try to stay up for days on end, but if you’re not tired, why sleep?”
See, this was why it was hard to remember she hated Bella now — she was so often the only person around who made any bloody sense! Sirius had given Remus that exact argument when he’d been nagging Sirius about needing to keep a regular sleep schedule during their OWLs...
"You definitely should try to remember to eat though, even when you're not hungry." She gave Asteria a very pointed if not terribly concerned look before returning to scrubbing her arms. "At least make a habit of taking a nutrient potion every day or something, harder to forget that than it is thinking oh, I’m not that hungry, I'll eat later until you actually pass out."
She glared at the older witch, resisting the urge to pull the towel up over her bony shoulders. "Did I ask you?"
Bella just shrugged. "Do you think I care? You're still my baby cousin, and there's apparently no one else in your life who thinks it's worth mentioning, so."
"Yes there is!"
"Oh, then you just don't trust them enough to take them seriously?" It was kind of infuriating, Bella being all...all nonchalant about her very irritating observations, apparently more focused on washing herself than their conversation. (Asteria didn’t really care that she had come in here to take a shower, obviously.)
"What makes you think I trust you? Especially after Yule."
"Aster. Duckie. There's trust, and then there's trust. I've never lied to you, and I've always warned you when there would be adverse consequences for your actions. If you didn’t trust me, you wouldn’t be here. And unlike...practically everyone, I know what I'm talking about when it comes to dealing with the Madness."
Fine, then, they could have it out right here. "You used the Cruciatus on me! And it hurt!"
"Well that is what it's meant to do..." Bella sounded genuinely confused about why that should matter.
"You have to mean your Unforgivables!” she snapped. “You were the one who taught me that!"
Bella fucking laughed, because of course she did, but actually stopped to look at Asteria. "So? That doesn’t mean I hate you, or whatever you’re thinking. Just that I wanted to hurt you — and honestly, that’s nothing personal, I kind of want to hurt everyone all the time.” Asteria had no words to explain how very fucked up that was. Didn’t matter, she probably already knew, and didn’t care any more than she cared about the hot water beating at her back. (Which made Asteria wince, because how could that not hurt?) “Most of the time I don’t, because I do have some self-control. It’s just a bit more difficult to maintain when I’ve recently been directly in contact with the Dark Itself — conducting the Yule ritual, for example. You were being a brat and trying to get a rise out of me, probably for the same reason, so I really don’t think you have any room to complain that you got one.” She shrugged. “It would’ve hurt a lot more if I didn’t actually like you. You’re still my most entertaining baby cousin, after all.” No fucking shite, Regulus was boring as hell. “I’m not going to stop giving you advice just because you’re an impulsive little shite with no sense of self-preservation to speak of.”
Asteria had no idea what to say to that — mostly because it was true that Sirius had been trying to get a rise out of Bella, but he really hadn’t thought she’d actually curse him. Not for real. "But, I— You'd never really hurt me before. I thought— Dorea said if you cursed me, you thought I was an adult, now."
"No, I think you’re a reasonably intelligent, very well-educated young witch, with a solid grasp of how magic can be used against you both overtly and covertly, and the skills to defend yourself from anyone who isn’t trained to Hit Wizard standards, and you’ve come into your power now. All of which means you don’t need me to protect you anymore. There's a difference between that and you being able to take care of yourself."
If that hadn't sounded so patronising, it might almost have been nice to hear. Well, the first part was just flat nice to hear. Bella was about as likely to say anything supportive just for the sake of it as de Mort. She was just stating the facts, and the facts were Asteria didn’t need her protection. That last part, though...
If anyone had asked Sirius before Yule, he'd probably have said that of course he wanted to be treated as an adult, but just being thrown out of the nest like he'd kind of thought he had been had made it very clear he wasn't ready to be on his own. Case in point, he'd run to Dorea after that Yule (and after he'd broken the Family Magic at Lammas) because he hadn’t known what else to do. So, on the one hand, it was kind of a relief, knowing that Bella would still look out for her, but on the other, she didn’t want Bella’s help or advice — she didn’t want to need it, and she didn’t want it from Bella, who was still a crazy, evil bitch who killed people for fun.
Again, something must have shown on her face, because Bella added, “If it’s any consolation, I wasn’t really ready for independence either, when I was your age. Just kind of seemed like I was an adult because you were so young.” Asteria didn’t know about that. It might’ve helped, but when Bella had been sixteen she’d stood up to Sirius’s father and Arcturus for him, made Arcturus, the actual Head of their House, treat her like an equal, which to seven-year-old Sirius was completely unthinkable. She’d already been a Death Eater, too — she’d had the Dark Mark as long as Asteria could remember — and de Mort wasn’t exactly the type to promote people just because they were sucking his dick. If she’d gotten kicked out of the Family for something, Asteria was pretty sure she would’ve been just fine on her own. Bella made a face at her, killing the water. “If you ask Thom, I’m still not really an adult. Adults make responsible choices, and don’t spend months engineering goblin rebellions when there are dozens of simpler ways to make a distraction.”
“You did what, now?!” She wasn’t talking about the Three Days’ Rebellion last spring, was she?
She didn’t answer really, just shrugged, heading for the door. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Hush.”
It didn’t take long for Bella to get dressed and find something for Asteria to wear too. She had had to teach her the charm to lace and tie a corset without breaking her bloody ribs and a few more feminine hair-styling charms — Asteria also really hadn’t considered that if she were a girl she’d have to dress like a girl — which had taken a little longer, and then Asteria had gotten distracted poking around what she finally realised was de Mort’s house. (She hadn’t been snooping, just looking for a spare potion vial or something to store those memories in...and coincidentally having a look at nearly every room in what was really little more than a cottage.)
In her defence, what she’d seen before heading to the Floo annex could easily have been a suite in any number of Black properties. She’d kind of assumed they were somewhere in Ancient House. But there were absolutely no Black properties so sparsely decorated, and the Blacks tended to corral their books into actual libraries instead of having a shelf or two in every room. She’d never really considered where the creepy, snakey bastard might actually live before. She guessed it made sense he had a house, he couldn’t just sleep in one of Bella’s or the Malfoys’ guest rooms all the time, it was just weird thinking of the snake-faced would-be Dark Lord eating breakfast in a charming little blue and white kitchenette with a view of the Irish countryside. When she’d mentioned this, Bella had asked (sarcastically) if she had expected him to live in a cave or something, and Asteria had had to admit that, yeah, actually, that seemed more his speed.
Still, it probably was less than an hour from the time Bella had offered to take her to lunch and their arrival at a little Greek restaurant Asteria had never noticed before, tucked away in a side-alley in Charing.
By little, she meant there were only half a dozen tables — they were the only customers — and three people working there. Bella apparently went there rather often, because all three of them knew her by name, and she didn’t actually order anything, just chatted with the hostess, a witch a couple of years older than Bella, in slangy, rapid-fire Greek Asteria mostly understood while the two men in the kitchen came up with something for them to eat.
It helped, trying to follow the conversation, that Lydia was very curious about Asteria. Bella had introduced her as a cousin, which Asteria thought should have been more than enough information — the Blacks were related to everyone, it was much simpler to just call everyone cousin than try to define the exact degree of their relationship — but apparently not. See, they looked too much alike to just be distantly related cousins of some degree or other. In fact, Asteria was pretty sure Lydia was suggesting that Bella was really five or ten years older than she looked, and Asteria’s mother, which Bella of course denied. (Not that Bella hadn’t had nearly as much of a hand in raising her, Narcissa, and Reggie as Walburga, but not the point.) After listening to Bella try to convince the teasing witch that no, she really didn’t have any children for about five minutes, Asteria offered, “No, she really is my cousin.”
Or at least, she thought she had. Maybe not, because Lydia switched to English immediately. “Oh, how rude of me! I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise— With your name, and Bella speaks Greek so fluently — I thought you were just shy!”
Asteria shrugged. “It’s okay, I did understand most of it, I just don’t really have much reason to speak anything other than English most of the time.” It really was very silly, making them all learn four or five languages when they were kids and then only ever using English (or French, at home, but even that they didn’t use very often).
“Mmm, yeah, that’s why I started coming here. Why learn a language if you’re never going to speak it?”
Lydia nodded solemnly. “Yes, she only likes us for my chatter.”
“The food’s pretty good, too,” Bella pointed out, as one of the cooks brought out a plate of dolmades as an appetizer.
The hostess laughed, withdrawing toward the kitchen. “Yes, yes, I’ll leave you to it. Enjoy.”
“So,” Bella said, as soon as she was gone. “Have you decided what you’re going to tell people, yet?”
Asteria almost choked on her grape leaf (she wasn’t sure what they had been stuffed with, but it was very good...and probably not just because she was starving). “What? What am I going to tell people about what? And why are we speaking Welsh?”
“Because you could use the practice, and the Kostas speak French. You may have noticed, but people don’t tend to spontaneously change sex over night. Generally speaking, not the sort of thing one discusses openly in public.”
...Right. “I...hadn’t thought that far ahead, really,” she admitted, more interested in the food than thinking about it at the moment too.
“In which case, I assume you also haven’t considered that you no longer own any suitable clothing—” No, of course she hadn’t. “—and are definitely still going to have to talk to Dorea’s mind-healer friend, because deciding to permanently change your sex on a whim is right up there with jumping off a balcony because you’re convinced you can fly on a scale of behaviours which normal people find disturbing.”
“I never— Did you jump off a balcony?” Asteria asked, giggling slightly.
“Yes, when I was seven — don’t change the subject.”
“You brought it up! Wait, does that mean someone actually made you talk to a mind-healer when you were a kid?” And she’d still ended up this fucked up?
“No, Thom healed my broken arm and told me to jump off a bench instead of a balcony next time. But Dorea is considerably more mumsy and less practical than he is. And I can pretty much guarantee that she won’t think becoming a girl in an effort to get her son’s attention is an endearing romantic gesture, so, point stands.”
Asteria was torn between amusement at the idea of mumsy de Mort, and finding it a bit creepy to be reminded he’d been Bella’s tutor when she was a small child. And also vaguely resentful of Bella forcing her to be all practical and face the fact that, as much as becoming a girl had sounded like a good way to escape her life, it didn’t actually mean escaping her life. She did have to go back, and probably sooner rather than later. Dorea was probably already worried about her, given that she had just run off in the middle of the night, in a dangerously impulsive state of mind. “...I should probably have Floo-called her, or left a note or something.”
“Yes, you should have. I sent her an owl this morning so she wouldn’t call the Aurors out looking for you.”
Oh. Right. She hadn’t even considered that Dorea would probably overreact badly enough to get other people involved. Walburga never called the Aurors to track her down when she ran off, even when she ended up staying out all night in muggle London. She’d mostly just been expecting to go back to a lot of lecturing and guilt-tripping, and freaking out because...girl. “Did you tell her I’m a girl, now?” Because that would be kind of convenient...
“Of course not, why would I?” She gave Asteria an evil grin, one which said she knew exactly why she might’ve, but hadn’t because she was a cruel bitch and wanted to make Asteria deal with the consequences of her actions herself. “I would recommend not lying to her about how your transformation came about — she’s not stupid, she’ll put together what must have happened the moment she realises what you’ve done and that you were with me. You will, however, have to come up with something to tell everyone else that doesn’t implicate us or you in illegal blood-magic rituals.”
“I don’t suppose I could just...plead ignorance. Like, no, I have no idea what happened, I just woke up like this?”
“Well, that might be easiest, but no one would believe it.”
“...Potions accident?”
“Uh huh. And what were you brewing?”
“Something to turn me into a girl, obviously.” Most potions to do something like that were restricted to some degree or other, but not so much that she’d be in actual trouble for using one on herself.
“Because...?”
“Because I was curious? It seemed like a good idea at the time? This year may be my last chance to get with Cassie Lovegood, and girls are more her type?” Really, there were loads of reasons Sirius might’ve decided that temporarily becoming a girl was a good idea.
Bella shrugged. “Good enough. Pater may actually buy that you thought it seemed like a good idea just because you were mad.”
Asteria groaned. “Do I have to tell him?” It wasn’t as though she tended to see him very often. She didn’t look that different. It seemed plausible he might not even notice that she’d become a girl at all.
Bella, though, just gave her an are you fucking with me look.
“Ugh, fine... Will you come with me?” she asked, giving her cousin her best puppy-dog eyes.
She smirked. “Did you really think I wouldn’t? I want to see the look on his face.”
Right, okay. That made the prospect of explaining that she'd gone and done something completely mad to the most intimidating person in her life a whole lot less...intimidating. If she was lucky, Bella would do all the talking, she could just sit there looking vaguely ashamed of her— Wait. “Do you think anyone’s likely to tell him about me almost getting Snivels killed?”
Bella raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m going to need a little more context.”
“It’s...kind of a long story.”
“Yes, well, we haven’t actually gotten food, yet. I think we have time.”
Well...bugger.
By the time she managed to finish explaining the whole fiasco — she had to go back and explain the incident by the lake, and the context of that and her feud with Evans and Snape too — they’d finished their entrees (the best lamb Asteria had ever had) and were picking at a rather large piece of baklava (which was also delicious, but after not eating enough for so long Asteria was stuffed).
“So, that’s pretty much it,” she concluded. “Do I need to tell him or not?”
“Eh...probably not. Dorea and Charlus have more or less taken custody of you and they won’t see any reason to inform him, especially since Dumbledore’s not likely to want it out there that he’s been hiding a werewolf up at the school, so he’s not going to mention it to anyone.” She had managed not to admit that she knew who the werewolf was, but Bella probably suspected she did anyway. “You can probably get away with completely omitting the whole thing, just present this transformation as an independent incidence of mad impulsivity. He won’t expect you to have a good reason, though if you tell him it’s the result of a potions accident he will almost certainly insist on finding someone to try to reverse it.”
“So, tell him the truth, and Dorea and Charlus—”
“Dorea yes, Charlus no. Unless you want to be as welcome at the Potters’ as you are with Walburga. He may think you’re a bit mad not to try to reverse an accident like this, but that’s better than the likely light freak-out over you getting mixed up in illegal blood magic and/or some kind of ritual.”
Asteria winced. Yeah, that would be bad. “He already thinks I’m a bit mad, I doubt he’ll be surprised if I tell him I’m just going to stay this way because it makes me feel pretty, or whatever.”
Bella snorted at that. “Oh, yes, because being three inches shorter makes so much of a difference. So, are we shopping or talking to Arcturus first?”
“Shopping? Who said anything about shopping?” Didn’t Bella have shite to do, baby Death Eaters to train? Somehow, Asteria found it difficult to imagine that she didn’t have plans...
“You can’t just raid my closet indefinitely.” Well, no. No, she couldn’t, because all of Bella’s clothes were very much her style, somehow both overly formal and overly casual — she'd put Asteria in a full-sleeved blouse, even fuller dueling trousers, and a "decorative" corset with a frankly absurd number of defensive enchantments worked into it — very dramatic in a fae sort of way, and entirely inappropriate for school. (The dress Bella was wearing at the moment was completely backless, the design carved into her skin hidden under a glamour of some sort.) Anyone who saw Asteria wearing her things would probably actually mistake her for Bella. (And even if that weren’t the case, she remembered belatedly she was supposed to hate Bella now, because Bella was evil, and killed people for fun. Casually borrowing her clothes seemed kind of like a tacit admission that she really didn’t.) “You decide while I settle up.”
Asteria just let herself flop back in her chair. This was going to be a long day, she could already tell.